A number of Botswana Community Trusts are unwittingly part of a huge international wildlife criminal network - Sunday Standard investigations have revealed. Documents passed to the Sunday Standard have revealed how the trusts are used as "grey" nodes (legal players who participate in illegal activities) in criminal hunting schemes by the international wildlife mafia. Investigations have turned up information that between 2007 and 2024, Dawie Jacobus Groenewald, the man who gave his last name to one of the most notorious wildlife poaching syndicates in the world, the Groenewald Gang also known as the "Musina Mafia", has had a curious business relationship with at least two local community trusts. The Groenewald gang is believed to be the biggest illegal dealer in transnational rhinoceroses' horns between southern Africa and Asia In September 2010, members of the Groenewald gang were charged with 1872 counts of racketeering, money laundering, fraud, intimidation and illegal hunting, making it the biggest wildlife case in South Africa's history. Around that time, Groenewald through his company, Valinor T/A Out of Africa Adventurous Safaris was in a business partnership with Xhauxhwatubi Development Trust of Phuduhudu. Under the agreement, the Trust gave Out of Africa Adventurous Safaris their allocated hunting quota, to carry out hunting activities in their community Controlled Hunting Area NG49 in Ngamiland. Dawie Groenewald and his brother Janneman Groenewald owned and operated Out of Africa Adventurous Safaris, an outfitter that organized and conducted trips in private hunting areas in Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Kgosi Johane Ngwengare of Phuduhudu con􀂬rmed the partnership with Groenewald and stated that the agreement was terminated in 2014. "Yes, at one stage he was one of our investors but we had to terminate the agreement in 2014. I'm unable to share the details of what led to the fallout" he said.